In Ecuador, a crushed and silenced democracy

The sentence against Ecuadoran
newspaper El Universo, its opinion
editor, Emilio Palacio Urrutia, and its three top executives, Carlos Eduardo
Pérez Barriga, César Enrique Pérez Barriga, and Carlos Nicolás Pérez Lapentti, for
supposed offenses against Ecuadoran President Rafael Correa in Palacio's
article "NO
to lies," is a worn-out manifestation of the perverse concept
of public freedoms that certain elected governments manipulate. They pervert
their legitimacy with an authoritarian self-assuredness that permeates their exercise
of power.

The violation of freedom of expression here is
notorious, and its illegitimacy flies in the face of international standards on
the subject. Any criminal conviction for supposed offenses against the honor of
public officials is illegitimate, because it curtails the right to criticize,
because it undermines society's control on the powers that be, and because it
erodes tolerance in the face of the other, which is inherent to democracy and
its values. Likewise, any irrational or disproportionate civil judgment, that
condemns a newspaper to close or be expropriated for the private profit of the
president, is unacceptable nonsense. To ruin a journalist for saying what he
thinks is an incalculable abuse, and to ruin editors and executives for
permitting the journalist to express himself is to reissue the worst
obscurantism.

This highlights the contradiction that is at the heart
of this sentence, which falls within a more complex phenomenon: the use of the
tools of democracy, rule of law, and the protection of human rights to bring
down democracy. It is a true aberration
that reveals a new wave of oppression by elected rulers, who have confused
democracy with elections, which they have made a mere instrument for the
seizing of power and to cloak the arbitrariness of an illegal judicial system.

Human rights are the historical tool of humankind to
combat oppression--any kind of
oppression, but above all that which originates with the State. It is nonsensical
that this tool is being used by the State to knock down freedom of expression
and the right to be informed--fundamental rights for all society--and to destroy
a newspaper, imprison journalists and media executives, and enrich the president
at their expense.

The ruling President Correa has obtained from the
docile Ecuadoran judiciary has been molded to his whims, and it has a clear
objective: to teach them a lesson. To teach them a lesson in Ecuador and in the
other countries that follow his deplorable example. To make intolerance a tool
to beat down anyone who dares to criticize and bother the majesty of the chief.
In this case, the government is severely punishing those who dissent, demonizing
those who criticize, and sending them to hell to silence them. It is a punishment that affects not
only the convicted, but all of society. It is an antidemocratic lesson. The
nefarious purpose of this ruling is to make journalists write with fear and to
make media editors and owners--who are scared as well--censor their columnists
and reporters lest they suffer the same fate as El Universo and its directors. They want to decree the hour of
silence, when the guarantee of honor becomes fear. The hour in which the only
expression that offers shelter from punishment is silence. An hour that belongs
to an age of darkness. An hour of the unacceptable. A society steeped in fear
and silence can never be democratic.

Pedro Nikken is a prominent Venezuelan lawyer, president of the International Commission of Jurists, and former president of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights.

Correa's legacy leaves a long road to recovery for Ecuador's journalists

November 2, 2017 1:56 PM ET

Since taking office in May, Ecuadoran President Lenín Moreno has pledged to end a decade-long battle between the government and the media. But several reporters and editors with whom CPJ spoke said that the anti-press campaign carried out by Moreno's predecessor, former President Rafael Correa, has caused lasting damage...

Ecuador's Moreno opens new era in relations with media

October 10, 2017 1:55 PM ET

Less than a month after taking office, Ecuadoran President Lenín Moreno engineered a ceasefire in the decade-long battle between the government and the nation's independent news media by inviting a group of radio, TV, and newspaper editors to the Carondelet presidential palace in Quito....